Concern over flight school security raised

“Evaluations need to be thorough, they need to be reliable and they need to put our security interests first,” he said. “The idea that flight schools could still be infiltrated is unsettling and the GAO findings should be a call to action for better communication across the federal government.”

He said Hunter is considering the bill by Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

The government accountability report states that the TSA vets foreign flight student applicants through its Alien Flight Student Program, but weaknesses exist in the vetting process and in Homeland Security’s process for identifying students who may be in the country illegally.

“From January 2006 through September 2011, more than 25,000 foreign nationals had applied for (FAA) airman certificates (pilot’s licenses), indicating they had completed flight training,” the report states. “However, TSA computerized matching of FAA data determined that some known number of foreign nationals did not match with those in TSA’s database, raising questions as to whether they had been vetted.”

The report also states that the student program was not designed to determine whether a foreign flight student entered the country legally, thus, a foreign national can be approved for training after entering the country illegally.

Many flight training schools across the country, responding to global shortages in pilots, have steadily increased their ranks of foreign students. Ash Dakwar, chief flight instructor at California Flight Academy at Gillespie Field, said some 95 percent of its 90 students are international, including those from Mexico, China and the Middle East. Many arrive here with little or no experience flying and return home with the required hours and licenses needed to work at commercial airlines abroad. “They spend money in our country, they move our economy, and they are all approved with legal visas,” Dakwar said.

Supervisors will hear the proposals at their regular 9 a.m. meeting at 1600 Pacific Highway.